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Streetdance 3D

Review by Jack Foley

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IndieLondon Rating: 2.5 out of 5

STREETDANCE 3D can proudly lay claim to being Britain’s first 3D movie. It can also proudly boast some genuinely exhilarating dance sequences, as delivered by the likes of George Sampson, Flawless and Diversity.

Sadly, it can’t lay claim to being a particularly great, or even memorable film.

Hugely derivative of American counterparts such as Footloose, Stomp The Yard and Step Up, it’s a generic, poorly scripted and wholly predictable offering that pays too little attention to anything other than its dance moves.

Co-directors Max Giwa and Dania Pasquini have a background in music videos and it shows. The movie invigorates and even inspires during its set pieces, and manages to use the 3D well, as well as its London locations.

But once the dancing stops and the talking starts, it struggles to engage on any level.

The plot is straightforward: Carly (Nichola Burley) finds her attempts to whip her dance crew into shape for a forthcoming tournament constantly thwarted until a chance encounter with an inspirational ballet instructor (Charlotte Rampling) provides her with a unique opportunity.

If the crew can inject new life and passion into her own ballet dancers, they can use the school facilities to train for free.

Hence, the unlikely worlds of streetdance and ballet combine, relationships are formed (Carly hooks up with Richard Winsor’s ballet dancer Tomas) and stereotypes and prejudices are broken down.

Streetdance seems to know its target audience and shoots squarely at them, embracing the conventions of the genre, and populating supporting roles with Britain’s Got Talent success stories.

Yet one suspects it aspires to be something more, too. Rampling’s presence gives it a gravitas it seldom deserves, while a sequence in which she takes Burley’s Carly to the ballet and watches as she is inspired by the depth of emotion portrayed in the performers’ faces (minus words) hints at what Streetdance might have been had a little more care been taken.

As things stand, it’s a lesson that it doesn’t learn from itself. The film only really comes alive once the script is discarded in favour of movement, and when its performers really get to express themselves through dance.

Hence, a little more care and attention may have taken Streetdance much, much further.